Warbird Information Exchange

Huh? Would that include the brave Japanese Americans for fighting the Germans?

Okay, so you seem to be equating Japanese prison camps and civilian treatment with Guantanamo. I'm not. It's pretty clear to me that they're
totally different situations.

While I'm not sure of the legal ethics of Guantanamo, I am sire that it in no way compares with the Japanese treatment of prisoners.



I strongly disagree. Surely you aren't making the argument that, had Stauffenberg succeeded, that it woudn't have intentionally helped the other side?

So had Stauffenberg contacted MI5 and gotten assistance from the British, you would have seen his efforts differently?

Let me state my view clearly. The Japanese Empire of this time period was an evil empire that operated without regard for human rights whatsoever. I have great difficulty in question the honor of an officer who recognized the evil being done by that empire, and chose to fight it.

_________________
"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

Joe Strummer, 1999

No...I'm not equating the two. That's not the point I'm making.

Again, what if a US officer did this, and his claim was that he thought what was happening in Iraq and at Guatanamo bay were immoral and illegal. How would your reaction be different?

My point is this: frame of reference means everything. Because you're American, and you see WWII from "our" point of view, this man's actions are heroic and he was fighting the good fight. I'll bet that if you were Japanese you'd see his actions very differently.

The same point applies to a fictitious US officer "protesting" the actions of the American government. To us here on US soil, he would be a traitor. In another country, that doesn't see the Global War on Terror in quite the same light as we do here in America, might see his actions completely differently -- heroic, even.

I know what you're getting at Randy, and you're completly correct.

With all due respect to all of you...I think this thread has gone off topic. Again, I did not post this to question Wada's action, nor as to why he did take such action...it was intended to share a little WWII history, no matter what your view of it is.

Without my offending anyone, please keep to the topic as intended.

Respectfully,
Dave

_________________
In Honor and Memory of Marine Bombing Squadron VMB 611 "Black Seahorse" 1943-1945
Remembering 1st Lt Doit L Fish, MIA May 30, 1945 in PBJ-1J "MB 11"
Cherry Point - Parris Island - Emirau - Zamboanga

Yep, sorry...my apologies.

Thanks...not a problem.

_________________
In Honor and Memory of Marine Bombing Squadron VMB 611 "Black Seahorse" 1943-1945
Remembering 1st Lt Doit L Fish, MIA May 30, 1945 in PBJ-1J "MB 11"
Cherry Point - Parris Island - Emirau - Zamboanga

Randy, you raise hard questions, but I think there is a difference between aiding the enemy as in an American who is troubled about Gitmo, etc. Our enemy, Al Quada, and Muslim extremist, do not represent freedom or peace. We may have a human duty to oppose our govt's torture of prisoners, holding people without trial and the rest of it, but we have some domestic and legal avenues for this without aiding the enemy. I think in the case of the plotters against Hitler, they had few choices inside Germany, and the Allies were clearly preferable to what Hitler had done to his country. One thing I wonder about in the press story of Wada, it says he regretted the Japanese and Nazi prison camps. Was he in a position to know, in 1944, about the Nazi death camps?

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I can only guess that as an "apparently highly-rated intelligence officer" of a "crack unit" in Mindanao, Wada may of known something about the Nazi prison camp situations. But I generally agree with you that it is strange that this knowledge whould be known to Japanese forces located in the relatively isolated Southern Philippines.

However, I would also believe the interviews of him by the Marine intelligence officer after Wada became a prisoner of war in August 1945, as noted in the article, would also be accurate. Who knows, this was 60+ years ago.

_________________
In Honor and Memory of Marine Bombing Squadron VMB 611 "Black Seahorse" 1943-1945
Remembering 1st Lt Doit L Fish, MIA May 30, 1945 in PBJ-1J "MB 11"
Cherry Point - Parris Island - Emirau - Zamboanga

If a Japanese soldier surrendered, he was considered dead at home. If he was considered dead at home, there was nothing to return to. Without anything to go home to, captured Japanese, not just Lt. Wada, were quite likely to change sides.

This picture was taken by LIFE magazine. It was in a compilation of photos called "Life's Picture History of World War II", printed in 1950. I am quite fortunate to have an original copy of this book. The photos are quite remarkable.

Just because the pictures were in Life magazine does not mean they are not fake. I agree with those who are troubled by apparent lighting and angle inconsistencies. Wartime photographers were very skilled and "creative" at this type of thing. We may never know for sure.

August

There is a lot to be said about this incident and series of photos. The US forces, USMC in particular, were so bled white by this point in the war, and finally capable of exploiting real intelligence that they were forced to hold back tactical units from killing every single Japanese soldier that may have legitimately wanted to come over to our side. I think this photo was part of the white propaganda, showing how the US and Japanese could cooperate to end the unfortunate war (doesn't that sound trite) because there had up until late 1944 been no real effort to court disaffected Japanese elements in the population and armed forces. Once Tojo fell from power, and more moderate elements began to get the ear of the Emperor, this was a real fifth column which could have been exploited to prevent deaths of a few of the million men we were anticipating losing during Operations Olympic and Coronet. I am positive this guy was courted by intelligence elements in the US Army to do this, and the later photographs show him looking very guilty about what he had just done. It was a dishonorable thing he did, yet in keeping with a very old Japanese tradition of odd alliances in times of war. I would very much like to know what his thoughts were on the whole incident. I saw this photo 25 years ago in an article some where, where they were trying to hit upon the positive aspects of US Japanese relations during the 1980's Japanese investor craze in the US. Old wounds heal hard, and their presence in the US was difficult at best for some of the people who were just retiring at the time. If you ever read Manchester's "Goodbye, Darkness," there is a real good anecdote regarding him meeting with an older Japanese man who had volunteered for the Kamikaze Corps.

Another thing about this photo- it shows how poor our intelligence elements were in the Pacific Theatre, having to carry and trust an enemy combatant to guide an aerial force to a target. It was due to poor language capability, poorer cultural understanding, and shoddy conceptions about how the Japanese were truly equipped to fight. Same thing is happening in Iraq nowadays- we just can't believe that nomads whose best efforts were oil and carpets are running our asses around. Maybe, since they discovered alcohol and algebra, they are a little smarter than we thought...

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

THought I'd bring this up again. I make my living as a photographer, so I'm pretty sure it's real.

_________________
"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

Joe Strummer, 1999

Well, I don't have a strong feeling about whether the photograph is fake or not, but I will say that if it is real, the photographer did a remarkable job of balancing the interior flash lighting with the much brighter exterior lighting using the technology of the time and under the conditions prevailing on a combat mission. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen any other wartime photo in which that was done so well -- let alone with such a wonderful composition of airplanes and clouds visible out the window. That is part of what makes me suspicious.

As for the focus, if I were a wartime photographer setting out to fake this picture, I would shoot Wada in the airplane, probably when on the ground, in sharp focus, and then I would shoot (or find in my files) the air-to-air shot out the window. When I put them together I would probably notice that they don't look realistic when everything is sharp, so I would throw the interior shot out of focus on the enlarger when printing. (I might also try defocusing the outside view instead, but if you imagine what that would look like, it doesn't work as well.)

All speculation, but to me a plausible way that the shot could have been composited. And the more I look at the picture, the more doubtful of its veracity I become.

As a final point, the thing Wada is looking out of doesn't appear to me to be the right shape or size to be a B-25 waist gun position. Looks more like (and should be, given his job) the navigator's window behind the flight deck. If that's true, then from this angle it seems to me we ought to be seeing a lot of Wada's own B-25's port wing out the window.

Oh heck, I've convinced myself 100% that it's fake now.

August

Well, August, you certainly have the right to your conclusion...but let me add just a little more information about this mission. I had the privilege of attending VMB-611's reunion in August 2005. When this subject came up, I was told by a Navigator-Bombardier vet that the mission did take place and was photographed by Lt. Duncan from the waist-gun position from the interior of a PBJ-1J. It was also related to me that the VMB-611 pilots and crews on this flight were replacements, as the orginal crews had previously been rotated out. The ONLY exception were the Navigator-Bombardiers as there was no newly trained replacements and they saw duty from original deployment to the decommissioning of VMB-611 - which also means the flew the most combat missions.

I strongly believe everything relating to this mission, including photos, is true as I see no reason for the Marine Corps or the VMB-611 veterans to make up such a story or photos.

Respectfully,
Dave

_________________
In Honor and Memory of Marine Bombing Squadron VMB 611 "Black Seahorse" 1943-1945
Remembering 1st Lt Doit L Fish, MIA May 30, 1945 in PBJ-1J "MB 11"
Cherry Point - Parris Island - Emirau - Zamboanga